Meet the Startup Constantly Inspired by What Steve Jobs Would Do, Ujustadd

Ujustadd.com is connecting you to best choices for an increased income as a buyer and seller.

This startup company was launched in August 2015. Its 28 year old C.E.O. and Co-founder Emmanuel Appiah, who hails from Ghana’s 2nd biggest city, Kumasi, in the Ashanti Region, is helping put money into your pocket in a more realistic manner than the typical politician would promise. For you content providers and sellers, this startup assures you of a more consistent way of reaching target buyers.

The UJUSTADD app makes it easier for sellers, shops & service providers manage and sell their stock, content, items, products and services in a properly structured shelfing system. Emmanuel promises the consumer, viewer & window shopper, an app that truly helps you find all the stuffs you have been looking for in no time and get you glued to your favorite shops, sellers & service providers with the sole aim of helping you increase your income.

This short interview reveals what interestingly motivates the UJUSTADD team and their outlook on investment among other revelations. Let’s spend time with this startup on how it tends to create a win-win situation for both buyers and sellers.

Emmanuel, what primarily is UJUSTADD, which you have introduced unto the market?

Ujustadd is an app that connects sellers & content providers to buyers & viewers with a clear aim of helping both sides increase their income.

What problems do you intend solving by developing your app?

Ujustadd seeks to simplify the ease of finding just the right products, services & content with a bottom line of helping its user increase their income.

What are the inviting features of this service that should get users excited?

Family and self-financing. And currently, a couple of prospective investors for series A in line.

How did you start your company, especially coming with up the idea?

We decided to build an app for ourselves to use. An app that would help us save time and money whenever we wanted to buy something or had an idea to get ready to buy something. Using the streets of Adum and Kejetia in Kumasi as reference market place for the beta testing and successive development.

Do you have mentors and how have they contributed to ujustadd?

Yes. My key mentor is the late Steve Jobs and his firm believe in the journey being the reward. Most of the design approach and equipment and applications we use here at ujustadd.com are from the brain children of this great mentor. It may sound funny, we end up asking the question of “What Would Steve Jobs Do?” (WWSJD) almost every time we are faced with a challenge in what we do here.

Since your company recently started, what is your chance of making it pass the five year ceiling for a lot of young businesses and what lessons have you learnt so far that you want to share with us?

We have learnt lessons from other apps and solutions we built some of which never even saw the light of day and for those that did, they did not live to see the next dawn. The bottom line for us from all those mild failures is to have the end user core-ly in mind and not just keep all focus on the product only. We have also learnt to be and remain profitable from previous experiences.

What will be success for you looking into the future?

A fully grown stack of a new ecosystem stemming from the one we have, where almost everything seems to be connected and our users are consistently experiencing an increase in income; seller or buyer.

What advice will you give to anyone venturing into the tech industry in Africa?

You have got to love what you are doing. Passion is key here and infact is everything. If you don’t find joy in what you do, then it’s time to take a shift. The key question here would be, if you have all your basic needs (shelter, clothing, feeding, etc.) met somehow, what would you do? Or an even simpler question would be, if you had 30 days to live before you die, what would you do before you die? Find the answer and start doing that thing today.

What mistakes have you made as the founder of this company and what lessons are there to share?

One mistake I had earlier made was imagining that users would like something because I like it too. It’s funny how this works. You have to listen to the users totally. Remember, without them you don’t have a business.

What difficulties have you faced since bringing this app into the market and how are you battling them?

Well, I would have mentioned the power problem but we solved that 8 months ago. Our current challenge is yet to be really found. More so because, here at UJUSTADD, we believe that the future only exist because we took actions today to create it.

What is your philosophy of doing business and do you think everybody can become an entrepreneur?

My philosophy of doing business hovers around the core mandate of being a problem solver and remaining indispensable to the recipients of the solutions. I personally do think anyone can become an entrepreneur but there are certain core behaviours and attitudes they need to have. A typical example would be the “Never give up attitude”, “financial discipline”, to mention but a few.

Startups always do make themselves available for any funding opportunity. So, how will you pitch ujustadd to a potential investor?

Well, that said, at UJUSTADD, we don’t just accept any funding. The investor would have to match us squarely.

The pitch is, UJUSTADD is mobile app that connects sellers & buyers to help both parties increase their income.

Give Africa a picture of where you foresee ‘ujustadd’ in the next five years?

In five years we hope to have crossed the 1 billion download mark with over 60% monthly active users and a base average income increase of 15-20% or more for our users.

What is most interesting and rewarding about being your own boss?

For me, it has been the ability to live a very free life and be in a world where I get to be dynamically creative towards solutions to problems and helpful to so many people and help make the world a better place, one person at a time.

Seize the opportunity to inspire budding entrepreneurs across Africa and a message to your followers.

When I was kid I used to believe in a world where there was a solution to every problem and this is the time to fully live that dream and wake up seeing it being reinforced by every square inche of it. I trust that with that believe and a spirit of never giving up, we can make Africa a solutions hotspot and not the opposite.

Thank you Emmanuel.

To create a shelf for your products and services just sign up on www.ujustadd.com. Call +233 242 550 332, send emails to ujustadd@gmail.com for further enquiries. Put your ideas to work today and see you at the top.

Take this lessons away with you from Emmamuel Appiah:

Don’t quit even if your idea doesn’t see the light of day.

To stay afloat, learn to be profitable.

Doing business in Africa requires a lot of passion.

Imagining the market will like your idea is not enough, do proper research.

Your concept should solve a real problem.

If you want to share your experience as a startup founder on TSH to Africa, send a brief detail of your business to mystartup@thespiritedhub.com

Was this interview inspiring? Leave us your comment.

Follow #TSH on Facebook and Twitter for more change making interviews.

HAPPENING IN AFRICA

About the Author

An entrepreneurship enthusiast, who believes Africans and Africa can have accelerated development if a lot more of us embrace our God-giving talents and effect positive changes in our society.